


keep living

by luminoussbeings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Disordered Eating, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, begrudging healing, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28097340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminoussbeings/pseuds/luminoussbeings
Summary: “If you’re still planning on drinking that entire thing,” Castiel says mildly, “you should at least finish your dinner first.”or: 3 months post swan song. dean thinks he's coping. cas thinks otherwise.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	keep living

He drives in silence. 

Somewhere around the third hour he starts an inventory of the shapes he passes. Here, a Taco Bell, lit neon and purple. Here, a gas station, _all cigarettes at state minimum_. Here, a strip mall and its parking lot drug deal. He burns each one to memory like a brand. Taco Bell. Gas station. Strip mall. Same pattern in every town, like he’s driving on one of those loops. Möbius strips, or whatever. If Sam were here, he’d know exactly what they were called, know the whole boring story behind their origin. _So get this._ More of that Ivy league bullshit. And he’d probably laugh himself silly when Dean inevitably pronounced it wrong, too. Fucker. 

But Sam’s not here. 

Dean stops thinking about Ivy leagues and Möbius strips and starts thinking, _Taco Bell. Gas station. Strip mall._

His palms are slick against the wheel. _Follow the rules, Dean_. Just long enough to make it. Don’t think about the empty passenger seat. Don’t think about the blood on the windshield. Don’t think about the dent on the hood that came from your skull. _Taco Bell. Gas station. Strip mall._ Don’t think about how your baby brother’s gone and you did nothing to stop it. Don’t think about how he’s rotting in hell and you’re still here, _you_. The cruelest irony of that. You, who’s kept hell in your heart like an ex-lover, who’s been ruined enough that another trip downstairs would hardly make a difference. 

Don’t think about how there’s not even a body to bury. 

Dean drives until his knuckles are white. Until even the Taco Bells peter out and the streets turn residential, rows upon rows of tidy suburban darkness, almost menacing in their homogeneity. 

_Find Lisa and Ben. Live a normal life._ God, what a joke. Normal? After everything? It’s the last thing Dean knows how to do, and it’s the last thing he deserves.

But—Jesus, it’s what Sammy wanted, isn’t it? _After—when it’s over—find Lisa and Ben. Please, Dean. You gotta promise me. You gotta keep living._

Dean’s let his brother down so many times; what’s one more added to the pile. He eyes the street lamp, the hood of his car. The airbags that never got replaced. He thinks, _it would be so easy_. 

Too easy. Easier than Dean deserves. 

He passes the streetlamp and parks next to a basketball hoop. Lacrosse sticks and nerf guns litter the driveway, and he steps over each one gingerly, taking care not to crush their plastic shells. The porch light flickers on, Lisa’s silhouette shadowing the door. _Keep living._ _Keep living. Keep living._

He’ll try, Sammy. By god, won’t he try.

***

“Hey—it’s Dean, right?” Sid says. He’s guzzling a water bottle, forehead shiny with sweat, and when Dean nods in affirmation, it crinkles with his easy smile. “The boys and I are heading to Nibsy’s after we finish up here. You want in?”

Dean flips the hammer in his hands, balancing it neatly between his fingers. “Thanks, man, really,” he says. “Lord knows I could use a couple. But not today—gotta run to the pharmacy. Kid at home, flu season. You know how it is.” He looks up with a practiced _what-can-you-do_ quirk of the mouth, the kind that makes waitresses say, _oh, you poor dear_ and coworkers nod with disinterested sympathy. 

It works just as he’d expected; Sid’s mouth pulls down in that way people do when they don’t actually care, and he claps Dean on the back with some variation of _we’ll catch you next time, bud_. Dean chuckles and lies something like, _you got it, man_. He waits for the break room to empty out and lets the smile drop. 

In the car, he rubs his hands together and waits for the radiator to crank to life. The Honda was dirt cheap, and it shows, but it gets him where he needs to be. Can’t ask for much more than that, although a working clock would’ve been nice. He slaps the dash a few times until the numbers _6:55_ shine green and faintly visible. Good. Lisa won’t expect him for a few hours.

The CVS is nearly empty. He hands the bored cashier a bottle of Nyquil—Ben _was_ sick, he wasn’t lying about that part—and throws down a tube of lidocaine for himself. He’d never admit it to Lisa, but the job is hell on his back. He wants to laugh at himself—Dean Winchester, once ruthless hunter, now reduced to construction jobs and drugstore-variety back pain. But he’s not 26 anymore, and for the first time that revelation is more comforting than panic-inducing. His body has an expiration date, and each day it pushes closer.

After CVS, he pulls into the liquor store down the street and exchanges a crumpled twenty for a half gallon of whiskey. As the man rings it up, Dean studies the label on a can of Skoal. _Warning: this product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes._

His dad used to dip, on occasion. Motel bathrooms and late night car rides when he thought the boys were asleep. Dean always thought that was dumb. If you were going to kill yourself, might as well make a show of it. And so he’d light up in the parking lot behind the high school, let girls with doe eyes and boys with bruised knuckles place slender cigarettes between his lips. He might’ve smoked a pack a day if he hadn’t come home one night to find Sam coughing on the back steps, one of Dean’s lighters clutched in his fingers.

Now Dean thinks he understands John a little better. There’s a gritty sort of pride that comes from destroying yourself without an audience.

The man hands him the bottle in a brown paper bag. Dean sets the can back on the shelf and heads out to the car. 

Next stop on his Friday routine: Taco Bell drive-through. He orders a crunchwrap supreme and forces down two bites as he drives, throwing the rest on the passenger seat. He’ll finish it later. Maybe. He can’t remember the last time he was actually hungry.

Finally, he pulls into the empty lot past Lisa’s house, yanks the key out of the ignition, and lets his breathing slow. His sanctuary; where the developers ran out of money and the road sits lonely and unfinished, where the restraint of suburbia gives way to wilderness. Where Dean comes to get fucked up out of his mind. 

He pulls the whiskey out of the paper bag. It’s the cheap kind, the kind in a plastic bottle that smells like paint fumes and tastes even worse. But it gets the job done, after beer stopped cutting it, and it doesn’t break the bank. Construction doesn’t pay much, and he’s got Ben’s college to worry about it. Or he did, before he slipped that life insurance policy into their last billing. He comforts himself that the kid’s gonna be taken care of, no matter what happens.

The cap unscrews easily. The first mouthful’s always the worst, but it gets easier after that, and the heat is welcome in the freezing car. 

“If you’re still planning on drinking that entire thing,” Castiel says mildly, “you should at least finish your dinner.” 

Dean startles so violently that he pounds on the horn, splashing whiskey down his front and onto the seat. “Jesus,” he says, when the air in his lungs has partially returned. “ _Jesus_.”

“Not quite,” says Cas. He holds out the crunchwrap, and Dean, still dumbfounded, accepts it mutely. For another minute, the fact of Castiel is still so improbable— _impossible_ —that all Dean can do is gape. Castiel, for his part, looks unperturbed, nothing about his outward appearance giving any clues to whatever crisis sent him to Dean’s side. 

“ _Shit_ ,” Dean says suddenly, fumbling for the keys. Castiel frowns. “ _Shit_ , Cas, is it Lisa and Ben? Are they—we have to go _now—_ ”

“I assure you, Lisa and Ben Braeden are not in any danger.”

Some of the vice grip on Dean’s heart loosens, and he lets his keys fall from his hands. “Then what—”

“Eat,” Cas says again.

Dean blinks. Scrubs a hand over his eyes. Blinks again. But Castiel is still sitting calmly on the passenger side, looking for all the world like the cheap microfiber seat was made just for him. 

“Excuse me?” Dean manages. “Are you— _seriously_ —showing up in my car after three months of radio silence— _three months!_ —just to boss me around about my _dinner_?”

“Yes,” Cas says simply. “The human body needs protein, fats, and carbohydrates to function. I can see your ribs through your shirt, Dean. You’re not well.”

Dean glares at him. Cas stares evenly back.

“Fine,” says Dean, and he takes an exaggerated bite. “Happy?”

“Generally, no,” Cas says. “But it does please me that you’re eating something. Finish the rest of it, and I will continue to share more details.”

Unbelievable. “Fuck you, Cas,” Dean says, without any real venom. Castiel’s expression doesn’t change, but one of his eyebrows furrows slightly lower than the other. 

Shaking his head, Dean takes another bite. The meat is cold by this point, and he’s making a real mess of the car, bits of lettuce and sour cream everywhere, but he’s starting to feel less shaky than before. _Goddamn_. It’s a sad day on Earth when _Castiel_ is more tuned in to the human body than Dean is.

Cas waits patiently as Dean eats, hands folded in his lap. He looks the same as ever—trench coat too big for his shoulders, tie just slightly askew. Dean remembers when he’d first met Cas, how unexpected it had been to find that an angel of the Lord could look so—disheveled. Now—though he’d never admit it—it’s grown endearing. Another point of difference between Cas and his ever-impeccable assholes of a family. Dean eyes the mismatched buttons on Cas’s shirt and thinks, _we got the good one._

When he finishes, Dean balls up the wrapper and chucks it to the floor, looking at Castiel expectantly. After a beat passes, he folds his arms and resumes glaring. “So? You ever gonna tell me what this is really about?”

Cas looks at him. “I told you, Dean,” he says quietly. “You’re not well.” 

Something besides the whiskey burns in Dean’s throat. He puts his hands on the wheel, tapping his fingers against the cheap plastic. He’s not having this conversation. “You’re right, man,” he says. “My back _has_ been hurting lately. Didn’t know that was important enough to get a visit from heaven, but I wouldn’t say no to some angelic Aspercreme—“

“I’m referring to your emotional pain, not your physical pain,” Cas says. “But I’d be glad to take care of that too, if you wish.” And before Dean can react, Castiel places his palms flat on Dean’s back, fingers warm through the thin layer of his henley. 

For a moment, all that runs through Dean’s mind is _I thought he’d be colder_. Then Cas shifts his hands, runs a careful finger along Dean’s vertebrae, and at once, the ache he’s grown used to vanishes. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Dean says involuntarily. Cas’s hands linger for a moment longer—just long enough for Dean to think, _am I drunk, or doesn’t he usually just tap my forehead_ —before he withdraws his hands and returns them to his lap, where they fold a little tighter than before. 

Dean takes another pull of whiskey. The crunchwrap sobered him up some, and if Cas is going to keep—keep doing _that_ , or saying shit like _“_ emotional pain,” then Dean’s going to need to make a solid dent in this bottle. 

“Look,” he says finally, when he’s drained a few more mouthfuls, “I’m fine. Really.” Cas tilts his head, looking pointedly at the bottle, and Dean sighs. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say, man! So maybe I’m a little screwed up. Who isn’t. And my brother’s in _hell_ ,” his voice cracks a little. _Fucking damnit, Cas._ His knuckles whiten around the bottle. “So I think I have a damn good excuse.”

“As excuses go, that is a fairly good one,” Cas says. “But it does little to alleviate my concern.”

 _Concern_. Dean grits his teeth. Great, now the angels are _concerned_ about him. Like he’s a stupid, broken little child. Like everything that’s happened hasn’t been a direct result of angels choosing to host their dick-swinging contests here on Earth. Like they don’t even care that Sam—

Anger rises in his blood, swift and mean. Dean welcomes it. Savors it. Lets it coat his tongue like lighter fluid. Already he feels better, the ache lessening as it shifts into something harder. Yes, _this_ is what he needs—not anything Castiel could give him. Just fury, righteous and purifying enough to be worthy of the Michael Sword. A match, an oil spill. A sharp pointed tool with blades on both ends. 

Not Castiel. _Not_ Castiel. 

“Hold on, let me get this straight,” Dean spits. “So _you_ wanna talk to me about ‘emotional pain’? Oh, that’s just great, it really is. The man—no, the _thing_ without real feelings, ready to go all Dr. Phil on my ass. Unbelievable. So you can take your concern and fuck right out of my life, you hear me?.”

Castiel’s eyes harden. Outside, the street lamp flickers once, twice, and then plunges into darkness. A shadow crosses the angel’s face that sends shivers across Dean’s neck. He’s suddenly very, very aware that something far more dangerous lurks behind the holy tax accountant façade. 

“Don’t presume to tell me what I can and cannot feel, Dean Winchester,” Castiel says. 

Dean is frozen to his seat. An involuntary surge of fear skitters across his skin—some deep, animal part of his brain telling him _predatorpredatorpredator_. Castiel holds his stare for a moment longer, eyes unreadable, then looks back to the window.

At once, the street lamp flickers back to life. Cas sags slightly, the slump of his shoulders outlined in the dim yellow glow. His lips are parted, eyes half-lidded and dark blue in the night. He looks soft. He looks utterly, utterly harmless. 

The still-lingering crawl of fear up Dean’s back says otherwise.

He realizes, for the first time, that he’s not the only one keeping so much contained just below the surface.

“And for the record,” Cas says, “I wasn’t going to make you talk about your feelings. I know you hate that.” He sounds somewhere between offended and genuinely hurt, just earnest enough that Dean almost laughs, even as something twists inside him. “I was just going to make you eat another one of these.” Cas snaps his fingers and a second crunchwrap appears in Dean’s hands. 

Dean deflates, anger and fear alike draining out of him. Cas may be a clueless sonuvabitch sometimes, and he may be an Lovecraftian horror shoved into the body of an accountant, but god, Dean can never stay mad at him. “Damn it, Cas,” he says softly, “I—”

He shuts his mouth. Cas is already gone.

***

_Keep living. You gotta promise me, Dean._

He’s trying. He’s trying so goddamn hard. “Keep living”—just two small words to encompass the whole vastness of it. The enormity. He can’t process it; he has to process it. The rules of it all, the mechanics of breathing with half a lung. He can’t process it. He makes lists. 

_How to Keep Living in 10 Easy Steps, by Dean Winchester._

  1. Play football with Ben in the yard. Let him tackle you but don’t always let him win, he hates when he thinks you’re going easy on him. Let him win anyway. He’ll get over it. Watch him push his sweat-slicked bangs from his forehead and smile with gap teeth and don’t think about Sammy, don’t think about Sammy.
  2. Eat whatever Lisa cooks and tell her that it’s delicious. Doesn’t matter that you didn’t taste it. It keeps her happy and it might keep Castiel off your back, or he might not care either way. Probably doesn’t. Forget the pain on his face when you cussed him out. Forget his name from your prayers. Take Lisa out for dinner and buy her dessert. She deserves better than you.
  3. Don’t try to help Ben with his algebra homework. They changed math again, and newsflash, asshole, you’re still crap at it.
  4. Don’t show up to work drunk. You can get away with a flask in the afternoon if the foreman’s not looking, but drink just enough to dull the edge. The main event comes later.
  5. Have sex with Lisa when she wants it. She’s beautiful and you loved her once, or still do, you can’t quite remember. She touches you and you are just a body. You kiss her like following a script. You remember her hands, warm and solid on your spine, only they weren’t her hands at all. 
  6. Don’t think about Castiel while you’re fucking your girlfriend. 
  7. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you.
  8. The neighbor’s dog isn’t a hellhound, you just have issues. Find somewhere inconspicuous to bury the body.
  9. Don’t stare too long at the streetlamps. It probably wouldn’t be as quick as you’d hope.
  10. Stop thinking that killing yourself would bring him back. It won’t, dumbass. You already did the soul-selling thing once, remember? It won’t work, not this time, and you know that. Try and convince yourself that makes a difference.



So yeah. He keeps living, and it’s fine. Pumpkin pie and football and the whole goddamn American dream. Normal life, right? Dean can be normal. He locks away the past 32 years and swallows the key. Keeps his eyes on the road and out of the passenger seat. Bites the prayers off his tongue and stops going to Taco Bell.

11\. No one's coming back, asshole. Doesn’t matter how sorry you are. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! im watching spn for the first time and swan song BROKE ME so yeah anyway. also im aware that stanford is not an ivy league and personally i think sam has tried to explain that to dean many times but dean is like shut the fuck up it's a fancy expensive college of COURSE it's ivy league and sam just gives up


End file.
